Resources
The benefits of taking coaching conversations outdoors – what the research says
Author: Alex Burn
This report aims to share insights, link findings to research in other fields and share some practical hints and tips about being an outdoor coach or coachee.
The Coaches’ Handbook: The Complete Practitioner Guide for Professional Coaches
Author: Jonathan Passmore | Published by: Routledge
Jonathan Passmore is a chartered psychologist, writer and researcher, with an international reputation having spoken at events around the world from Harvard to Jo’berg. He has written extensively about leadership, personal development, coaching and organisational psychology.
The Biophilia Hypothesis
Author: Edward O. Wilson & Stephen R. Kellert | Published by: Island Press
Biophilia’ is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity’s innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book ‘Biophilia’ he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species.
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
Author: Iain McGilchrist | Published by: Yale University Press
This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain – the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the ‘rational’ side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true?
The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective
Author: Rachel Kaplan & Stephen Kaplan | Published by: Cambridge University Press
A study of the natural environment, people, and the relationship between them. The authors offer a research-based analysis of the vital psychological role that nature plays. They try to understand how people perceive nature and what kinds of natural environments they prefer.
The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World
Author: Roman Krznaric | Published by: WH Allen
In The Good Ancestor, leading public philosopher Roman Krznaric argues that there is still hope. From the pyramids to the NHS, humankind has always had the innate ability to plan for posterity and take action that will resonate for decades, centuries, even millennia to come. If we want to become good ancestors, now is the time to recover and enrich this imaginative skill.
In Praise of Walking: The new science of how we walk and why it’s good for us
Author: Shane O’Mara | Published by: Vintage
Walking upright on two feet is a uniquely human skill. It defines us as a species. It enabled us to walk out of Africa and to spread as far as Alaska and Australia. It freed our hands and freed our minds. We put one foot in front of the other without thinking – yet how many of us know how we do that, or appreciate the advantages it gives us? In this hymn to walking, neuroscientist Shane O’Mara invites us to marvel at the benefits it confers on our bodies and minds, and urges us to appreciate – and exercise – our miraculous ability.
The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter
Author: Colin Tudge | Published by: Penguin
What is a tree? As this celebration of the trees shows, they are our countryside; our ancestors descended from them; they gave us air to breathe. Yet while the stories of trees are as plentiful as leaves in a forest, they are rarely told. Here, Colin Tudge travels from his own back garden round the world to explore the beauty, variety and ingenuity of trees everywhere: from how they live so long to how they talk to each other and why they came to exist in the first place. Lyrical and evocative, this book will make everyone fall in love with the trees around them.
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
Author: Merlin Sheldrake | Published by: Bodley Head
Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi. Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.
Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do
Author: Wallace J Nichols | Published by: Back Bay Books
Why are we drawn to the ocean each summer? Why does being near water set our minds and bodies at ease? In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about these questions, revealing the remarkable truth about the benefits of being in, on, under, or simply near water.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Author: Robin Wall Kimmerer | Published by: Penguin
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two ways of knowledge together.
The Restorative Benefits of Nature: Towards an Integrative Framework
Author: Stephen Kaplan | Published by: Journal of Environmental Psychology
1995, Issue 15, pages 169-182
Directed attention plays an important role in human information processing; its fatigue, in turn, has far-reaching consequences. Attention Restoration Theory provides an analysis of the kinds of experiences that lead to recovery from such fatigue. Natural environments turn out to be particularly rich in the characteristics necessary for restorative experiences.
Directed Attention as a Common Resource for Executive Functioning and Self-Regulation
Author: Stephen Kaplan & Marc G. Berman | Published by: Perspectives on Psychological Science
2010, Issue 5(1), pages 43-57
Utilizing a theory-based natural environment intervention, these studies have found improvements in executive-functioning performance and self-regulation effectiveness, suggesting that the natural environment intervention restores this shared resource.
Let the wider ecology do the coaching
Author: Peter Hawkins, November 2020
As referenced in Episode 10 with Peter Hawkins.
Renewal Associates – Resources
Published by: Peter Hawkins
Peter Hawkins is a prolific writer, as well as a coach, and shares many resources on his own website, as referenced in Episode 10.
Sugar NLP Outdoor Learning Solutions
Published by: Sugar NLP Ltd.
“Best piece of training I have invested in the past 20 years” – Nick Smith (Episode 4)
Mountain Training UK
Mountain Training is the collection of awarding bodies for skills courses and qualifications in walking, climbing and mountaineering in the UK and Ireland.
The Institute for Outdoor Learning
The Institute for Outdoor Learning is the professional body for organisations and individuals who use the outdoors to make a difference for others.
Fantastic Fungi (2019)
Written by: Mark Monroe | Directed by: Louie Schwartzberg
Narrated by: Brie Larson
Fantastic Fungi is a descriptive time-lapse journey about the magical, mysterious and medicinal world of fungi and their power to heal, sustain and contribute to the regeneration of life on Earth that began 3.5 billion years ago.